Twenty-two years ago, I asked my dad if he was gay. Then he was gone.

Contents:

• GROWG UP WH A GAY FATHER – CONFSNS OM A STRAIGHT SON
• THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW
• THREE SGLE, GAY DADS REFLECT ON FATHERHOOD, SURROGACY JOURNEYS
• HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY

GROWG UP WH A GAY FATHER – CONFSNS OM A STRAIGHT SON

In this example, you happened to see him naked a settg that n be sexually arog for a lot of gay man. Jt as you didn’t choose to be gay and have the feelgs you have.

But I knew he was gay by the time I was 7 or 8. So this is my story of growg up wh a gay father. Growg up wh a gay father, particularly one who was aaid to e out, prented challeng our abily to get emotnally close.

I don’t rell a time when I didn’t know my Dad was gay. From my earlit memori of my Dad around age 5, I thk I always knew my dad was gay. Th I never had that aha moment of realizg “I have a gay father”!

THE GAY FATHER I NEVER KNEW

To hear both of them tell , my Dad beg gay wasn’t a factor the spl. How my Dad me to terms wh beg gay.

THREE SGLE, GAY DADS REFLECT ON FATHERHOOD, SURROGACY JOURNEYS

I don’t thk anyone knew yet that my Dad was gay.

After all, he was the son of a Baptist Preacher and there would not have been much tolerance the 1940’s or 50’s for him to e out as gay.

HOW I ACCINTALLY FOUND OUT MY DAD IS GAY

In talkg to both of them over the years, they both claim they had no ia my Dad was gay.

In retrospect, the fact that he was a cheerlear his bt iend was a male hairdrser (who was openly gay) that my Uncle Buddy nicknamed him “Percy” (which my Dad hated) and that my Dad went on to open a home furnishgs store might have been a clue. Realizg his sexualy and beg a gay father the late 1960s, pecially wh me a long way away, mt have been really transformative for my Dad.

He lived and around the Oak Lawn area of Dallas (long a predomantly gay or at least gay-iendly neighborhood).